Parts of south-east England had more than an inch of snow last night while London experienced its first October snowfall in more than 70 years as winter conditions arrived early.

Snow settled on the ground in parts of the capital last night as temperatures dipped below zero. A Met Office spokeswoman said it was London’s first October snow since 1934.

For greater south-east of England it was the first October snow since 1974. High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire had 3cm (1.2 inches). One of the coldest temperatures recorded was -4.1C in Benson, Oxfordshire.

“It is unusual to have snow this early,” the Met spokeswoman said. “In October 2003 sleet and snow was recorded in Northern Ireland, Wales, south-west, north-west and north-east England and the Midlands, but it was mainly over higher ground.”

Excerpt: Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday – the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922. The Mother of Parliaments was discussing the Mother of All Bills for the last time, in a marathon six hour session.

In order to combat a projected two degree centigrade rise in global temperature, the Climate Change Bill pledges the UK to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. The bill was receiving a third reading, which means both the last chance for both democratic scrutiny and consent.

The bill creates an enormous bureaucratic apparatus for monitoring and reporting, which was expanded at the last minute. Amendments by the Government threw emissions from shipping and aviation into the monitoring program, and also included a revision of the Companies Act (c. 46) “requiring the directors’ report of a company to contain such information as may be specified in the regulations about emissions of greenhouse gases from activities for which the company is responsible” by 2012.

Recently the American media has begun to notice the odd incongruity of saturation media coverage here which insists that global warming is both man-made and urgent, and a British public which increasingly doubts either to be true. 60 per cent of the British population now doubt the influence of humans on climate change, and more people than not think Global Warming won’t be as bad “as people say”.

Winter LINGERS? Since winter is officially still more than a month away, were they referring to LAST winter lingering? Through the whole summer?

Or since the folks at Accuweather are GW Alarmists, maybe they were referring to winter as a season in general, implying that winter is simply “lingering” awhile longer but will eventually stop showing up at all.

Parliament has bitten off more than it can chew. Unless there is some serendipitous technological breakthrough, those goals are not going to be met. And if the recent cooling trend continues, the public is going to rise up and smite the miscreants.

While I feel very sorry for the people of the UK, and I would not be suprised to hear of people freezing to death this winter, the silver lining is as follows.

It makes me feel sick to say this…

If there is a clear indication of economic suicide by a major western nation that can’t be mistaken for anything else – it will give an opportunity for the rest of us to realise the folly before we follow the UK down this path.

I hope something intervenes to stop so many being hurt by the folly of the few.

I imagine we should be prepared for similar ironies. The anticipated new administration will no doubt bring in Cap-and-Trade at Pelosi’s insistence at a time the real data is showing a reversion to the 20th Century mean temps. Fascinating, isn’t it? The computer modeled predictions are carrying more weight than the actual data. Hansen predicts a 1.2°C warming in 2008 compared with 1988, but the hard data says we’re closer to the 1988 conditions than we are to the model, yet the model seems to find more traction in the opinions of people in power.

If the AWGers get their way and we find the cooling trend of present continues, will they take responsibility for the effects of the cooler conditions — reduced agricultural production and starvation, increased demand on fuels to keep warm, increased cold-related deaths, etc.? Just wonderin’.

And when the River Thames freezes over, it will doubtless still be considered an anomalous event caused by climate change.

Leave it to the Europeans to keep embracing the Precautionary Principle. It truly ought to be named the Sabot Principle, since its real aim is to end change and innovation and sabotage industrial health. For this to be a true principle, it ought to apply to all substances. So, if sufficient quantities of dihydrogen monoxide were to be administered to lab mice, the way other substances are tested, and the mice then die, then the intake and consumption of dihydrogen monoxide ought to be banned. So much for the soundness of this absurd ‘principle’. Since the depths to which politicians can sink in their effort to take care of us poor dumb peasants knows no limit, I’ll not be surprised to one day see a health label on water bottles warning of excess consumption of the product.

Of course, most politicians that pass such silly measures as was cited in the article will probably not be in office in the coming decades. All it will do is damage industry today while having little effect on emissions. Looks like the only people being fooled by their charade are the politicians themselves. But then, this is nothing new nor unique to the UK.

ZaNuLabour leaders are probably looking forward to the deaths of thousands of UK pensioners as a way of avoiding paying old age state pensions and balancing their books. The MSM will be useless and in the spring, the totalitarians will claim their prudent handling of the UK economy is showing results. Allegedly.

As portrayed in a TV series. “You may say that. I couldn’t possibly comment.

If the AWGers get their way and we find the cooling trend of present continues, will they take responsibility for the effects of the cooler conditions — reduced agricultural production and starvation, increased demand on fuels to keep warm, increased cold-related deaths, etc.? Just wonderin’.

When my fist clenches, crack it open
Before I use it and lose my cool
When I smile, tell me some bad news
Before I laugh and act like a fool

Pensioners in the UK will die of cold because they can’t afford heating costs.
I am beginning to suspect this is deliberate. It will reduce pressure on
pension funds and the NHS and free up much needed housing.

We have our own homegrown idiots in Australia. Penny Wong and Kevin Rudd announced today the we to will have a “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme”. It will be introduced in 2010 and will cost every citizen $1.00/day when it starts.
Notice the change in words from CO2 to carbon.
The whole population of Australia accounts for 1.2% of the worlds CO2 output and if we produce absolutely no CO2 China will make enough CO2 to replace our annual output in just two weeks. To reduce it to the levels expected in the green paper will take China just two days to replace our annual output.

A little off topic —
I was just watching the Weather Channel, and the man said that the New England snow storm was caused by Global Warming. WOW!!! I was wondering how soon that tie in would be made. I guess that all these world wide cold records are just more proof of AGW.

We have all heard about the Al Gore effect. Earlier in the year when the ceremony for the Australian of the Year was held, at which Tim Flannery Australia’s own AGW fanatic was present, the weather was unseasonably cold. And now this.
If Gore, Hansen, Monbiot, Suzuki, Flannery, all those Hollywood and pop music celebreties who support AGW, along with the UK government go and camp out at the North Pole their presence could cause the artic ice pack to expand even faster than it currently is. Come on Al and company a small sacrifice from you can save the polar bear.

In 204-05 (I recall) the UK had a measure of “excess winter death” of 34000. 34000 died in the winter above what could be expected (this is on the Office of National Statistics Website). I hate to think what will happen this year, especially with fuel price increases.

Well, you all must be right: all these scientists are plain idiots and all the politicians are much more stupid than you are. Actually, very smart people do not even try to do science or politics – they leave this to the common minds.

A lot of the usual bru ha ha and conspiracy theorising from people who, it seems, don’t know the difference between weather and climate (or, more likely, choose not to know for propaganda purposes).

I’m from the UK. The weather is indeed cold atm, and may stay so for several days – I see no need to deny that reality. But, so far this year temperatures have averaged out above average, and we’ve seen several of the warmest years on record in the past ten – that’s another reality I don’t deny.

Hey guys, what’s the big deal? It’s just weather. And when the Thames freezes over? Just weather… And when 10,000 pensioners die freezing in their domiciles…
And when a great nation is brought to her knees, who will take care of her poor?
It’s just weather.

Fascinating!
The British parliament should instead of passing a bill on how to combat a hypothetical global temperature increase of 2 C during the next century, set up plan how to adapt to the real possibility of a global temperature drop of 2C during the next decade.

Well I don’t know what you are all on about! We here in the UK have been passing laws and regulations on CO2 emissions for a few years now, and sure enough the temperature has gone down. Our policies have cooled the climate so much we can now look forward to a white Xmas. Quite clearly, these laws have worked!

All we need now is for our illustrious and dear leader to save the world on the credit crunch.

Obviously I’ve underestimated the bureaucrats’ potential for folly.
How naive of me.
I always thought just another 0.5°C more cooling, and pols would drop the AGW nonsense like a hot potato.
Now it looks as if it will take another 1 or 2°C, i.e. a LIA, before these government dimwits wake up.

So never underestimate the potential for blithering absurdity by government.

Over ingestion of Dihydrogen Monoxide kills faster than lead, radiation, asbestos, cancer, mercury, in fact just about most things, let’s get the wretched stuff banned for ever.

As to deliberate killings, this of course is nothing new historically although I would refrain from suggesting the current incumbent in Buck House is guilty. After the Spanish Armada was defeated by stout seamanship, skilled gunnery, better local knowledge, & bad weather used to advantage, the English fleet was left anchored at sea for months on the grounds that another “threat” could come at ant time. However, the Crown had to pay the seaman but only when they had done their “duty”, & keeping them at sea doing their “duty”, they wouldn’t be paid. More men died from sickness & disease as a direct result of this action, than were killed by Spanish canon! The “Crown” saved a fortune, so no news there then.

This country is just about washed up now, no other nation seems to be as bothered about CC/AGW. Unless the people can elect a decent opposition which does not have a AGW bent or fixation, then we’re done for. Law & order is in chaos, with AGWers allowed to break it at liberty without fear of legal redress, just because they alone have a God given right to save the planet! Sadly it will be the poor, elderly, & needy who will suffer, not the middle-class intellectual elitists who perpetuate this rubbish.

It is truly amazing how scientific fact gets in the way of pseudo science, & is then used as evidence to support the pseudo science! It rather reminds one of The Life of Brian, when the crowd, clearly looking for some direction & leadership, start following Brian around, claiming everything & anything is a “sign”. Sadly, this little comedy run will not end so amusingly I fear.

AtB

PS Last night’s repeat of Top Gear was wonderful – when they took a modified Toyota pick-up to the north pole rifle & all + a trained marksman to keep the PB’s at bay in 2007, summertime, you know when all the ice melted like never before, they got there in the end despite the horrendously difficult terrain. My goodness it looked a very beautiful, but very, very, very, cold & forbidding place! Curiously they didn’t see one British canoeist or sailor on the way.

As a Brit, a retired physicist and an AWG sceptic I despair of our government and its official opposition passing this dangerous piece of legislation, What really surprises me is that our political leaders are so incredibly stupid not to, at least, leave themselves room for manoeuvre. Surely they know that mean global temperatures are stable now or even falling. Surely they have been advised of the serious scientific work that has produced clear evidence of solar and oceanic effects on climate. I cannot be the only one who has taken the trouble to write to his MP and the Energy and Climate Secretary Ed Miliband. I cannot believe that at least one scientific adviser has not drawn at least one senior politician’s attention to the possibility that the earth is entering a decadal period of cooling. And that they might just possibly be faced with a serious energy crisis, not in 40 or 50 years but in 2 or 3, and they could face the wrath of the population as they see aged relatives dying of hypothermia.

Just how can an entire assembly of over 600 politicians, barring 3 or 4, be so stupid as to believe without question the ravings of a crooked ex US vice president and the politically driven UN IPCC and not, at least, provide for a fall back position? Forget the science, this is just plain bad politics.

It makes me weep with frustration when I witness our elected representatives acting en masse against the interests of the country they purportedly represent.

It’s useless threatening to “vote for the other lot” because they’re all equally culpable. And when the ramshackle edifice of AGW collapses around their ears like the wonky house of cards that it is, they’ll just blame ‘the other lot’ and walk away from the whole sorry mess.

You are so missing the point. This isn’t England, it’s Camelot and these area our aims:

It’s true! It’s true! The crown has made it clear.
The climate must be perfect all the year.
A law was made a distant moon ago here:
July and August cannot be too hot.
And there’s a legal limit to the snow here
In Camelot.
The winter is forbidden till December
And exits March the second on the dot.
By order, summer lingers through September
In Camelot.
Camelot! Camelot!
I know it sounds a bit bizarre,
But in Camelot, Camelot
That’s how conditions are.
The rain may never fall till after sundown.
By eight, the morning fog must disappear.
In short, there’s simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot.
Camelot! Camelot!
I know it gives a person pause,
But in Camelot, Camelot
Those are the legal laws.
The snow may never slush upon the hillside.
By nine p.m. the moonlight must appear.
In short, there’s simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot.

ake two pails of water; fill one with hot water and the other one with cold water, and put them in the freezer. The hot one would be frozen before the cold one. But wait, you say, that’s counterintuitive: wouldn’t the hot water have to cool down to the temperature of the cold water before proceeding to freezing temperature, whereas the cold one has “less to go” before freezing?
—————-
nikiDrug Rehabilitation Programs

You are absolutely correct in drawing attention to Professor Stott’s article. You beat me to it. His comments put me in mind of the old canard about how King Canute sat in a throne and commanded the sea to retreat in order to point out to his entourage of lickspittles and hangers on, that the king’s powers were those of a man and not of a super human, or even a deity’s. MPs cannot vote to change climate. It’s like claiming wet roads cause rain to fall. There is no feedback mechanism.

Thus, five UK MPs voted against the Climate Change Bill, demonstrating that only they have the wisdom of Canute and those ******* throwbacks have only the wisdom and knowledge of —– wait for it —–Cnuts.

Cnut being the alternative spelling for Canute. Clever eh? well I thought so, because to the pure in mind, all things are pure! The corollary being that one has to be corrupted to find offence in my post. I wish Smilies were available! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canute_the_Great

This is so depressing. Did no one in Parliament question the basic reason behind this bill i.e. dangerous man-made warming? If the science were sound then this extraordinary irony – Parliament passing this bill when London experiences October snowfall for the first time in three quarters of a century – would be just that: an irony. But I can find no credible evidence to prove strong AGW. All the credible historical and scientific evidence shows that the climate is always changing and that the recent warming was not unprecedented but actually inevitable. And all the signs are that the warming that we enjoyed in the last century has ground to a halt and that the earth may be entering a cold period.
How can scientists and politicians get it so spectacularly wrong? Unfortunately it’s only too easy to answer that question, in fact with hindsight it was almost predictable.
Still, the recent Observer opinion poll showed that the majority of Britons don’t believe in AGW, and that they think that many scientists don’t believe, too. A recent poll in the US shows the same. The organisations that commissioned the polls are strongly pro-AGW, so the results are even more significant.
So there may be hope, but don’t hold your breath. Not so long ago I thought that evidence pointing toward another possible Little Ice Age might have been enough. But now it looks like we’ll have to descend into the next full Ice Age before these dangerous idiots come to their senses.

Perhaps the Gulf Stream is shutting down due to too much fresh water being injected from the Arctic ice melt over the last two years. That would certainly change the weather in the UK(I am waiting with steamy breath to hear that). Or perhaps it’s just ol’ Mother Earth acting the way it has been for millions of years (Not holding my breath to hear that one). Right about now, with the colder air in SW Florida, I could use a whole lot of warming. I think I’ll go out and chop down some trees and burn them.

It really does look as though the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

I’m surprised they didn’t agree to cut the greenhouse gas emissions by 100% and have done with it. Rationality is in short supply in parliament.

The UK is acutely short of electricity generating capacity it would only take a severe cold snap or the Russians to cut gas supply to result in power cuts THIS YEAR

The government wants to build 10,000 3MW of shore windmills to generate 20% of the UK’s electricity (as required by the EU) this requires that’s 2 windmills/day are installed between now and 2020 and there is currently only one ship worldwide that can do this and no available construction capacity. The government conveniently ignores that 3MW is the installed capacity and that wind farms rarely exceed 25% practical efficiency thus 40,000 windmills would be required even if the wind could be encouraged to blow with the right strength at the right time.

We sell all our nuclear generating capacity to the French on the assumption that they will generously build enough new nuclear capacity to meet the UK’s needs

We allow that idiot Hansen to appear to defend the anti- coal protesters. Coal, clean or otherwise, is the only resource available quickly enough to meet the UK’s short/medium term energy requirements

Like Nero I think we might fiddle while Rome burns

The UK has no energy policy of any merit and will face an acute energy shortage over the next 10 years and has no rational politicians who could solve the problems.

Never mind we will all be forced to use low energy light bulbs by 2010 maybe this will solve all our problems :o(

“But, so far this year temperatures have averaged out above average, and we’ve seen several of the warmest years on record in the past ten ”

True of course because the temperature peaked during the period and we are coming down the backside of the curve. So the temps in each subsequent year will be in the top 10, then top 12, 15,20,…and over the average.

I really do not understand the argument that it is cooler than the last several years but still in the top XX so cooling is not happening. We have a near decade trend, and an impact on the 30 year trend as well. It is not just one cold season in the UK.

Yes, the UK Parliament is in the grip of some fateful delusion – it is truly scary to watch how not only MPs, but NGOs and Development Aid organisations, and everyone down (or up) to the Womens’ Institute and Royal Society have endorsed AGW ideology – believing, of course, that it is science. Nobody seems to be studying this sociological phenomenon – which is quite unprecedented, and…I would say, about to descend on the USA. I will watch with interest, because at least over your side of the great water, you have a plethora of intelligent dissent. Will you have any effect? I doubt it.

My own theory is that we are not dealing with a blinkered idiocy – many people gain some kind of assurance from the global warming mantra and the promise to turn it all around – like a cypher for meaningless and vulnerable lives, or some kind of prayer to the subliminal earth-spirit-creator we know exists (because we have both earth and spirit) but can no longer find the means of access – whatever,
it needs understanding, not ridicule,
and not also,
throwaway remarks about the Precautionary Principle (Leon – if you have an open mind, I can refer you to writings on its evolution) – which turned around the ‘burden of proof’ on mercury, lead, acid rain, PCBs and other toxic chemicals, radioactive discharges and dumping – and enabled ‘us’ (I worked on it for 10 years) to close down hundreds of thousands of cheapskate discharge operations and replace them with modern clean production technology – and with no ill effects on the global economy (outside of China).

And watch this space – the Hadley Centre were due to release their climate change projections this November for the next decade or more (which are then used by a myriad hangers-on to devise regional climate strategies) – but are now delayed (due I think to some oceanographic input). When I talked with them a month ago, we looked at the rapidly growing blue-spot among the 20-year red of the 3 degrees anomaly in the North Atlantic – and I asked, ‘so how long will it take to lose the Atlantic’s upper ocean heat content, like we just did in the North Pacific?’
Google Habobs and visit the SST data maps!

This is a failure of democracy and probably… the end of democracy.
The anti-terror legislation that is already in place will be used against the people.
Any future opposition will be regarded as an act of terror (against the climate).
The political in-crowd will not accept internal opposition.
Climate Skeptics will be removed from the scientific institutions and educational systems (already happening) and robbed from their careers.
In order to meet the carbon objectives the administrations will (already have) conclude that a reduction of the population is the only solution.

At this moment in time we have 1 billion people in the world that go hungry and our governments have the arrogance to squander gigantic amounts of capital and assets
to solve a non existing problem?

People who have been in government for a long time begin to think of their fellow legislators as their peer-group, rather than their constituents. They spend their days with other members of government, and party and dine and get their daily socializing in with those peers rather than with their constituents. They become an echo chamber, echoing the opinions they hear from other legislators as outside voices, even from the people they serve, become harder for them to hear.

They’ve stopped thinking of themselves as representatives, and started believing themselves to be leaders. So when there is a sea-change among their constituents, they will usually miss it.

Thank goodness for democracies, which eventually self-correct. When election time comes, and its time for these dear leaders to finally turn around and address the concerns of their “followers” only to find that nobody is behind them anymore, it can come as a bit of a shock.

Hopefully that will happen sooner rather than later, although with US elections in just a few days, it looks like its going to be “later” for us since the tide has not yet turned in regard to AGW legislation efforts, and everyone is still singing the same tune.

flanigan: Well, you all must be right: all these scientists are plain idiots and all the politicians are much more stupid than you are. Actually, very smart people do not even try to do science or politics – they leave this to the common minds.
Still trying to hide behind the “consensus” I see. Yeah, good luck with that. Your feeble attempt at sarcasm is a mark of desperation. Your AGW religion is crumbling.
AGW scientists aren’t necessarily stupid, they just know which side their bread is buttered on. The politicians pushing AGW ideology are simply self-serving, duplicitous, hypocritical, moronic oafs. But, you knew that.

Not the English Henry, of course, but the harried, hapless Hohenstaufen Holy Roman Emperor who was defeated at Canosa by the Papal army and forced to stand bare-footed in the snow for three days (this was near the beginning of the Little Ice Age) as penance.

I believe that the 20th c. Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello wrote a play about him.

“A once proud country humbled and on their knees to AGW. Even with deeper snow and cold the religion will be believed.”

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity…

Brown won`t be around much longer, I don`t think the Tories will will continue with this folly, I believe they voted the bill through to keep the greens happy until they have gained power. Long live Boris.

JamesF (00:02:42) : The UK is about to embark on a huge nuclear power station construction programme. With such high GHG reduction targets, the greenies won’t be able to stop it. Could this be part of the strategy?

Peter wrote:
we’ve seen several of the warmest years on record in the past ten – that’s another reality I don’t deny.

People talk about 30 years as a minimum to see a real trend in global warming. I presume a few record years in the past are just a blip? Do we have to wait 30 years to see who was right? Less than 30 years, and it is not climate, it is weather. AGW cannot be proven wrong until we wait 30 years. It also cannot be proven right.

Though Peter Hearnden makes a valid point about weather versus climate, he might also have the grace to notice that colder than normal makes us suffer a lot more than hotter than normal. As far as I can see, most Brits actually want to leave Britain and settle in France, Spain, Cyprus etc to get some more warmth. I saw a house nameplate in Calahonda from a resettled Scot which read “Dun Shivrin”. That for me really sums up an important issue; ie while we might all accept that a lot of overall warming might be dangerous, a little warming would probably be beneficial. Alas it might not even be warmer at all in the future. In any event, we do have this remarkable capability of moving around to find a climate which suits us.

‘Climate Chaos’ is the new phrase. AGW, which is failing to raise temps so ‘Global Warming’ is out. ‘Climate Change’ doesn’t do it since the climate is always changing. But ‘Climate Chaos’, now that is a stroke of genius. My ‘AGW’ believer friends are throwing this phrase around quite a bit. “Additional CO2 added by those evil humans is causing ‘Climate Chaos’. This allows them to ascribe ANY anomalous weather (and non-anomalous for that matter) to an effect of increased levels of CO2. It is irrefutable, although none of them can tell me why a steady increase in CO2 should be able to cause temperatures to drop over a period of years, they just say, “It’s a result of the chaotic effect of CO2 on climate”.

Peter Hearnden: A lot of the usual bru ha ha and conspiracy theorising from people who, it seems, don’t know the difference between weather and climate (or, more likely, choose not to know for propaganda purposes).
Yes Peter, keep banging that same old AGW drum of “conspiracy theorising”, and “difference between weather and climate” you people continually copy and paste ad nauseum. Try to at least come up with something original.

This reminds me of the version of Gladiator made in the 70s, in which Commodus says he can hear the gods laughing. I think I can too! By the way, few will ever tell you that the reason Parliament is even considering such economic suicide is because of estalished EU laws and practices on emissions. Thus, while the UK can go further than EU legislation, it cannot go backwards. That is to say, while Parliament can pass laws that are stricter than established EU laws and EU Commission regulations, it cannot say “bollux” to the whole thing and throw emissions regulations out the windows of those once hallowed halls of Parliament as the bad idea that it is. It is true that due to the financial disaster Germany, France, and others are backing off emissions, but that is only for the present. The oddest thing about the British situation in the EU is that they are routinely overridden in Council votes, and pretty much ignored otherwise, yet they do their darndest to carry out the wishes – even further than most – of their masters in Brussels. And that, make no mistake about it, is where England is ruled from, not London. London is now the equivalent of Richmond, Va or Sacramento, Ca. A big city, no doubt, but merely provincial in effect. Even if they thought emissions regulation a completely bad idea, they cannot say NO! to any legislation passed by the EU itself. They must comply. Resistance, in this case and with this blinded Parliament, is indeed futile.

Just an Aussie absolutely besotted with MLB and the WS. If this AGW keeps going ahead, then any future WS game in the North will need the players to be dressed in snow suits, if the PHI games are an indication! How good would four games in Cleveland be, if this year is an example? Regards to all on the thread – stay civil.

Well, you all must be right: all these scientists are plain idiots and all the politicians are much more stupid than you are. Actually, very smart people do not even try to do science or politics – they leave this to the common minds.

They’re not idiots, Flanagan. They’re corrupt. They have sold out for money. But not all.

Climatologists like Prof. Richard Lindzen, head of M.I.T.’s Atmospheric Sciences department, eminent Prof. Freeman Dyson, and thousands of others in the hard sciences, don’t buy the hype that you buy into.

As long as they remain in office, the politicians are anything but idiots. They’re extremely successful at getting what they want – power and control. The only facts or truth that matter are the ones that support their tenure. They’re just as happy ruling the stupid as they are ruling the intelligent – just so long as they rule. There’s the key – remove enough of them from their positions and the behavior of the rest will change fast.

Sadly it will be left too late to do anything about this global cooling that is having results everywhere, the UK should have started building more coal power stations a decade ago (we have lots of coal still). Instead we are faced with a choice of energy blackouts or reliance on Russian gas. Nukes won’t be ready in time.

Anyway the UK’s great national interest is the weather (we don’t have climate, just weather – January days can be warmer than June days) and there are plenty of messageboards on UK weather sites that are very sceptical, the only people that seem to be posting on them supporting AGW are self-serving greens and politically-driven scientists.

Also, you will note the global aspects of the alleged climate change. It is not by accident that these are always brought up. It is also not by accident that the US is part of the OECD (another international redistributionist bureaucracy we – the American people, I mean – got suckered into joining, much like the UN), nor is it by accident that we are a part of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), waiting only upon the Senate’s consent to get it ratified. If Obama becomes president and the Democrats control the Congress, you can bet that will be passed rather quietly. But, among the “rights” it alleges to give ALL OF HUMANITY, being as it falls under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is the following: labor rights, social security, health care, education, an adequate standard of living, and more. Many of these are laudable aims, moral and ethical it might even be said. But do they rise to the height of being within the Rights of all Mankind? And whom do they figure can properly fulfill not only all these rights but also our alleged obligations to cool down planet Earth? A global government, of course, which will operate in the rarified air and in the shadows, still allowing us the practice of being an independent nation while ever more enslaving us with new “rights” passed through international treaties such as this. Soon enough we too will be just a province instead of a nation, just like our good cousins in Britain.

I did not hide beneath any consensus, where did I say this? I simply said that I’m amazed some blog-reading nobodys are convinced they are smarter than anyone else, smarter than a whole bunch of PhDs working for years on climate modelling. I try to remain modest, and do not qualify as “stupid” people who do not think like me – I just say some of them here are obviously so self-satisfied they do not admit others could be right.

Personally, I simply look at facts. GE is supposed to augment worlwide temps, and they are increasing. Excess CO2 is supposed to acidify oceans, and it’s happening. The antarctic is supposed to melt rapidly, and surprise, it is doing so. There’s supposed to be a hot spot in the atmosphere, and there’s one. Relative humidity should be constant, and it is. So what?

Snow flurries throughout the night and early morning caused numerous delays for travellers using Switzerland’s rail system on Thursday.
A heavy, wet snow snapped trees, which fell across tracks. The most affected regions included Zurich, Schaffhausen in the north and the areas around the Gotthard pass in central Switzerland.

Passengers moving between Spiez and Interlaken south of Bern were forced to take buses when rail service there was interrupted around 7am. Broken branches and trees blocked roads.

Farmers in the Bernese Oberland also awoke to snow-related problems. Damaged fences allowed their cows to wander freely.

According to MeteoNews, the Swiss lowlands received the most snow for any October since records began. Zurich received 20cm, beating a record of 14cm set in 1939.

The UK is about to embark on a huge nuclear power station construction programme. With such high GHG reduction targets, the greenies won’t be able to stop it. Could this be part of the strategy?

Which the envirowhackos will try to block or sabotage, to aid in the slide towards de-industrialization, as is their desire:

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialised civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” — Maurice Strong, head of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and Executive Officer for Reform in the Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations.

Flanagan, The only “proof” for AGW comes from modeling. There is no hot spot. The Anarctic has gained ice. There is No “objective” proof the very recent warming is from AGW. The recent trend over the last 7-10yrs is now one of cooling

Flanigan: I did not hide beneath any consensus, where did I say this? You said: ” Well, you all must be right: all these scientists are plain idiots and all the politicians are much more stupid than you are.”
So, who, or what are “all these scientists” if not your much-vaunted “consensus”?I simply said that I’m amazed some blog-reading nobodys are convinced they are smarter than anyone else, smarter than a whole bunch of PhDs working for years on climate modelling.
No, you didn’t. But now, you are trying two different, common AGW tactics, the ad-hominem (“blog-reading nobodys”), and the appeal to authority (“whole bunch of PHD’s”). Two swings, and two misses. Got anything else?

You say “As a Brit, a retired physicist and an AWG sceptic I despair of our government and its official opposition passing this dangerous piece of legislation, What really surprises me is that our political leaders are so incredibly stupid not to, at least, leave themselves room for manoeuvre. Surely they know that mean global temperatures are stable now or even falling. Surely they have been advised of the serious scientific work that has produced clear evidence of solar and oceanic effects on climate. I cannot be the only one who has taken the trouble to write to his MP and the Energy and Climate Secretary Ed Miliband. I cannot believe that at least one scientific adviser has not drawn at least one senior politician’s attention to the possibility that the earth is entering a decadal period of cooling.”

As a fellow Brit, a retired physicist and an AWG sceptic, I too have written to my MP, the PM, leader of the opposition etc and all to no avail. However what you appear to have missed is that the scientific advisers are all part of the same clique, i.e. they work for the Met Office or NGOs and are government funded so that their careeers, future funding and future honours (they get their OBEs knighthoods etc) depend on giving the AGW advice that the politicians want to hear. There’s no honour or honesty in the country anymore.

Some intelligent responses on this comment board. I always appreciate thoughtful commentary. Thanks all. I have hope for the human race yet!

I think these dolts need to start holding their summits in locations around the equator. It would easily avoid these embarrassing developments. We can then see pictures of them sweating in October!

Here in Arkansas (Southern U.S.A. for those who may not know) it has been one of the mildest Summers I can remember. There was plenty of sunshine and rain – but very few sweltering days. My lawn is still green, the trees still holding their leaves. Usually August heat blasts the grass making it go dormant well before the fall. Also, the oak trees often begin “going brown” due to the extreme heat and lack of rainfall. Today, for the record, the oak trees are still quite lush. They certainly did not get baked. But the frost is already making appearances, the leaves are beginning their normal turn and fall. My fireplace has seen its first few fires. We’re all knuckling down for some harsh winter temps.

Oh, and for all you other rural folks out there, we cannot find a persimmon whos pit doesn’t have a spoon. Get out your shovels, y’all!

You think you are “smarter than a whole bunch of PhDs working for years on climate modelling.”
-Flanagan

You mean those models that they have to run 47 of them and then try to get some sort of average? Those models that have been repeatedly falsified? Those models that we have to wait thirty years to find out if they are ok? The models that that are continuously tweaked?
Here is a test of model predictions by a very smart lady that is also a “warmer”:

If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out of it but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no-one dares criticize it.
Pierre Gallois

Brian Johnson (04:38:00) :We have absolute idiots in our Houses of Parliament. […]
We are being led by morons.
And who are the morons that voted the other morons into office?
A people have the government they deserve…

Flanagan are you wilfully ignorant? There are a lot of scientists writing on this blog.

Ocean/sea water PH is alkaline. Some would say extremely so. No (readily available to humanity) amount of (whatever is meant by “excess”) CO2 dissolving into it will make it “acidify”, maybe just slightly less alkaline.

The Antarctic is a 2 kilometer thick layer of compacted ice. Continent wide nuclear bomb detonations wouldn’t put much of a dent in the thermal inertia tied up down there – and the trend is toward colder not warmer.

Emerging out of an ice age should produce a much sharper upward trend in temperatures than is happening. Some would add, has happened and will happen. Some would call the current trend flat, or falling.

As for a hot spot – there is one under my collar as I read your missive which is obviously designed as a wind-up. I was dumb enough to bite.

Well, I meant Arctic, my mistake. And there IS a hotspot, please read the IPCC reports and if you like, Real Climate.

Models are not “falsified” as you say. Of course if you start from the idea that all models are bull***** and all measures are bull******, then any discussion becomes difficult. There is no way something else than computer models can predict what the climate looks like. Unless someone is personally able to solve thousands of coupled differential equations by hand…

Bruce: an ad hominem attack refers to someone specific. Like when you accuse me of changing tactics or whatever. I was just expressing my opinion on some behavior that I find inappropriate for a constructuve discussion. If you ever felt attacked, please accept my excuses. And please also stop generalizing people: what you said is akin to saying all black people are stupid or all jewish people are liars, or any racist or one-sided opinion. Which I personnally cannot stand.

When groupthink and mob mentality take over, individuals become incapable of rational thought and just go with the crowd. They convince themselves that there is sense in what they are doing.

This is no different. This is mass brainwashing at its finest. There is no otehr explanation for over 99% agreement on this issue, when every trend line shows that, at the very least, there may be something in there worth discussing.

One actually wonders how so many people have become devoid of individual analysis and appropriate skepticism. This subtle a prolonged brainwashing effort has been much more successful than any of the more famous tactics of holding one in a cell with the lights on 24/7 and incessant repeating of the mantra “the earth is warming and it’s all our fault.”

No, instead the mantra is now simply repeated in the heads of those making policy. “The earth is warming and it’s all our fault.” “But it’s cold and snowing outside.” “The earth is warming and it’s all our fault.” “But all the trend lines in recent years are negative while CO2 continues to rise.” “The earth is warming and it’s all our fault.” “But there are many issues with temperature measurement.” “The earth is warming and it’s all our fault.” “But the earth has warmed before back when no SUVs existed.” “The earth is warming and it’s all our fault.”

I did not hide beneath any consensus, where did I say this? I simply said that I’m amazed some blog-reading nobodys are convinced they are smarter than anyone else, smarter than a whole bunch of PhDs working for years on climate modelling. I try to remain modest, and do not qualify as “stupid” people who do not think like me – I just say some of them here are obviously so self-satisfied they do not admit others could be right.

I recall Joel Shore posting something like this recently. The implication, obviously, is that all intelligent people have PHD’s, and those who don’t are ignorant. Usually followed by, “How many papers have you published in peer reviewed literature.” Being someone who has two suma cum laude post-graduate degrees who left school for a high-paying job working on proprietary (Flanagan, this means used, manufactured, or sold by a person or company with an exclusive property right such as a patent or trademark) research, I have neither a PHD, nor an extensive list of computer modeling publications, similar to most of my intelligent friends. I therefore take considerable umbrage at being lumped in your sub-par grouping. Considering the logic of your posts, look in the mirror.

Leon Brozyna (22:03:39)
A principle in use by certain members of the US Congress says: “even though factual information is absent, the seriousness of the charge demands action” – the principle of Preemptive Supposition.

This must either the most stupid parliament since the mid 1800’s one which passed the act banning Brunel’s wonderful wide railway gauge, therebye sentencing practically everyone on earth to the misery of overcrowded, inefficient, narrow gauge trains.
It is either stupid or a parliament of timeservers, serving out there “yes boss” existence as they wait for their wonderful pensions.
The only good thing is, whereas the world took notice of the narrow railway gauge, and copied it, nobody else will take a blind bit of notice of the latest lunacy.

How do explain the Roman and Medieval Climate Optimums without manmade CO2 to drive them?

What about the warming from 1900 to 1950 with record ice loss in the 1930s?

What about the glacial retreat that started in the late 1700s? Just look up Glacier Bay in Alaska. It was full of ice hundreds of meters thick in the 1700s and by 1900 over 65 miles of ice had melted – all before the Industrial Age began.

How do your supergenius PHDs explain that?

And for the record, I’ll bet I can write more and higher quality code than any of your PHDs. When I was working on my Masters, I offered to help my Professors modernize their systems and they backed down because their systems would then be very very fast and their peers “would not be able to duplicate” their work. LOL. They stayed with their old methods of copying files and hand-rolled tools rather than use a modern DB, modern tool suites, and clusters of servers.

I simply said that I’m amazed some blog-reading nobodys are convinced they are smarter than anyone else, smarter than a whole bunch of PhDs working for years on climate modelling.

Flanagan, how long have you been reading this blog? I don’t recognize you as a long-timer around here. So I’m assuming that your characterization of some of us as “blog-reading nobodys” has been formed on the basis of short time exposure to who many of us are, or what we know or don’t know. As such, I don’t know if you are just trying to be insulting, or what. But you are doing a good job of showing your ignorance.

Flanagan also there is no “proof” the Arctic is doing anything unusual since we have only ~30yrs of satellite records. The Arctic had a large melt as recently as the 30’s–so yawn —nothing to see here move along

Flanigan: Bruce: an ad hominem attack refers to someone specific. Not necessarily. Your ad hominem was targeted toward, if not the entire group, then a subset of those who post here. Same thing.Like when you accuse me of changing tactics or whatever.
Which is exactly what you did, in your attempt to re-characterize your original statement.And please also stop generalizing people… The truth is, AGWers don’t have science on their side so continually resort to tactics such as those you engaged in. We see it all the time. If the shoe fits…

If there was only a way to tap the force of the irony being utilized in episodes like this and pretty much every Al Gore appearance that doesn’t occur during hurricane season, I would wager that much of our planet’s energy needs could be met.

Anthony, great picture! This is the best headline yet for those of us who hope for at least a Maunder Minimum to put Gore and his climate change cronies in the icebox!:] Living as I do in the heartland of socialism and global warming- Nancy Pelosi lives a few minutes walk from me-this gave me the biggest dose of cheer in many days!

When the UK Labour Government came to power in 1997, they pledged to cut CO2 emissions to 20% below 1990 levels by 2010. At the time UK CO2 emissions had already fallen 9% so they were almost halfway there with 13 years to go. Roll forward 9 years to the latest figures (2006) and UK CO2 emissions have risen by 9 million tonnes since the pledge.

Clearly it was the way they dealt with that target that has inspired our Government into this latest insanity.

I expect it’s to do with the man-made stuff caused warming, & the natural stuff, caused by the mand-made stuff, causes cooling see! Easy. I heard of AGW scientists allegedly claim that they can distinguish between man-made CO2 & natural CO2 by its chemical composition. How they can do this when it is mixed with the air I don’t know? So could somebody enlighten me as to how this is done, I thought CO2 was CO2 was CO2, although I appreciate there is a difference between food-grade CO2 injected into drinks & natural stuff from landfill etc., but that is surely as result of controlled manufacture, as opposed to natural impuities within the gas?

Pensioners in the UK will die of cold because they can’t afford heating costs.
I am beginning to suspect this is deliberate. It will reduce pressure on
pension funds and the NHS and free up much needed housing.

The Sci Fi of the early 1970s may become reality (credit to Genesis, the song, “Get ’em Out By Friday”):

John Pebble of Styx Enterprises

“Get ’em out by Friday!
You don’t get paid till the last one’s well on his way.
Get ’em out by Friday!
It’s important that we keep to schedule, there must be no delay.”

Mark Hall of Styx Enterprises (otherwise known as “The Winkler”)
“I represent a firm of gentlemen who recently purchased this
house and all the others in the road,
In the interest of humanity we’ve found a better place for you
to go, go-woh, go-woh”

Mr. Pebble
“Get ’em out by Friday!
I’ve told you before, ‘s good many gone if we let them stay.
And if it isn’t easy,
You can squeeze a little grease and our troubles will soon run away.”

Mrs. Barrow
“After all this time, they ask us to leave,
And I told them we could pay double the rent.
I don’t know why it seemed so funny,
Seeing as how they’d take more money.
The winkler called again, he came here this morning,
With four hundred pounds and a photograph of the place he has found.
A block of flats with central heating.
I think we’re going to find it hard.”

Mr. Pebble
“Now we’ve got them!
I’ve always said that cash cash cash can do anything well.
Work can be rewarding
When a flash of intuition is a gift that helps you
excel-sell-sell-sell.”

Mr. Hall
“Here we are in Harlow New Town, did you recognise your block
across the square, over there,
Sadly since last time we spoke, we’ve found we’ve had to raise
the rent again,
just a bit.”

Mrs. Barrow
“Oh no, this I can’t believe
Oh Mary, and we agreed to leave.”

This is an announcement from Genetic Control:
“It is my sad duty to inform you of a four foot restriction on
humanoid height.”

Extract from coversation of Joe Ordinary in Local Puborama
“I hear the directors of Genetic Control have been buying all the
properties that have recently been sold, taking risks oh so bold.
It’s said now that people will be shorter in height,
they can fit twice as many in the same building site.
(they say it’s alright),
Beginning with the tenants of the town of Harlow,
in the interest of humanity, they’ve been told they must go,
told they must go-go-go-go.”

Sir John De Pebble of United Blacksprings International
“I think I’ve fixed a new deal
A dozen properties – we’ll buy at five and sell at thirty four,
Some are still inhabited,
It’s time to send the winkler to see them,
he’ll have to work some more.”

Memo from Satin Peter of Rock Development Ltd.
With land in your hand, you’ll be happy on earth
Then invest in the Church for your heaven.

As soon as I saw this on Drudge, I checked here, and sure enough, you are repeating–again–right wing drivel.
You’re just a hack, Mr. Watts!
Let’s remeber too that the first signs of GW will be COOLING OF THE BRITISH ISLES!
Geez!

REPLY: Reporting on a record weather event earns me the title of “hack”? You forget that weather is my life and my business. I have reported on weather for over 25 years, and this is the very first time I’ve been called a “hack” for doing so. Please note that I said NOTHING ABOUT GW in that post, the press story did. Your quarrel is with them then.

Now if you really want to get yourself angry, why not take a look at the next story where I report on records that have been set nationwide. Also, not one mention of GW there in my posting, just the data direct from the National Climatic Data Center.

What derisive term shall you use to then once you read that? I urge you to get creative. We await your judgment. – Anthony

Flanagan. You would do well to not just admit your error on mis-typing ‘Antarctic’ for ‘Arctic’, but also admitting that you got it spectacularly wrong on relative humidity too. With regard to the missing ‘hot spot’, realclimate isn’t a climate god, it’s just a bunch of people pushing one particular view. You cannot refer to their website as though it somehow trumps what anyone else might say. And I too am waiting, so when you’ve answered Niels, can you give me your explanation for cooling at 25,000 feet. Thanks so much.

I’m one of them there rural folk and I ain’t never heard of a persimmon spoon. I live just a tad north of y’all and the persimmon trees are loaded this year. The coons have been havin themselves a field day. So this weekend I’m gonna take a look. We got our first frost so they be ready to pick now.

Does a persimmon spoon portend a harsh winter? I’m gonna cut me an extra cord o’ wood just in case.

Darn – just when I had THE answer for my GW friends ……
Opting for a political solution to what is a political problem …. I was ready to blame, Day-Light-Savings, all that extra sunlight must have been to blame for a good deal of the extra warming …….

Thanks for the link. He’s certainly one of the more eloquent spokesmen for skepticism. His blog from the 18th October carries a guest article by one Professor Cliff Ollier on Lysenkoism. I was curious.

Says Ollier:

He (Lysenko) demonised conventional genetics, which again suited his masters, who believed this to be the basis behind fascist eugenics…

Opposition to Lysenko was not tolerated, and was labeled ‘bourgeois’ or ‘fascist’. Lysenko used his position to denounce Mendelian geneticists as “fly-lovers and people haters”, which had serious consequences. From 1934 to 1940, with Stalin’s blessing, numerous geneticists were shot, and others exiled to Siberia.

I can see how such demonization of a movement (which was reappearing and current) in the U.S., could catalyze Soviet hatred. Genetics (as opposed to eugenics) could be linked to it and cast in the same unnatural light for those unable to distinguish between the two. An uneducated public is crucial.

Here in the U.S., what is the Evil with which the Global Warming deniers are linked to denigrate them?

Dan, I ain’t heerd of noin persimmon spoon either. We used to check the thickness of the fur on the coons, opossums and muskrats to determine the severity of the coming winter. Somehow, those rascally varmints get proprietary weather information not available to us humans.

Check the seed of a persimmon after a fall frost. Cut into the seed from the narrow side, and look at the kernel. See if you can recognize the shape of a spoon, fork, or knife. (See Photo at the link below)

If the kernel is shaped like a . . .

spoon, look for a harsh winter with heavy, wet snow.
fork, look for a mild winter with light, powdery snow.
knife, look for a cold, icy winter with cutting winds

“Evidence has emerged that human activity, not natural phenomena, is directly responsible for heating up the polar ice caps…all continents of the world are being warmed through human activity…The Antarctic was the only one where there was any doubt, but not any more..”

You think you are “smarter than a whole bunch of PhDs working for years on climate modeling.”
-Flanagan

Mike you obviously do not understand the difficulties the computer modelers have in getting Nature to conform to their models. The public has been acclimatized to the infallibility of the computer since its inception…inception…inception…

Well said. Yet, it is a difficult matter too. The EEC, the previous incarnation of the EU was presented to the peoples of Europe much like NAFTA was to the United States. But now look where they are. London can’t even pass its own legislation on any important matter anymore. The majority of British people no longer subscribe to AGW, yet their MPs are a lock for the idea. But even if their MPs were not, they are a part of the EU, and that matter is no longer in their jurisdiction. All this to illustrate the difficulty of being an ‘educated’ individual in a dumbed-down society. It’s much like you battling popular superstitions about the activity of the Sun versus the real science you deal with daily. At least nobody can vote to remove you.

Brian Johnson (04:38:00) :
We have absolute idiots in our Houses of Parliament. […]
We are being led by morons.
And who are the morons that voted the other morons into office?
A people have the government they deserve…
”

Leif,
Woa be it for me to disagree…I hold your science, but more importantly your logic in high regard. The above, however, I do take issue with, at least on a general level. Voting one of the “idiots” out of office here in the States only results in the next idiot (from a line perhaps 20 long) who is next in line to step into the vacant slot. Quite simply, our system of government in the U.S. has disintegrated to the point where the people who really are smart enough and skilled enough to solve some of the problems we face wouldn’t go near public office with a 10′ pole.

Nice link to the current (30th October 2008) BBC mindset by JaneHM above(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7700387.stm
).
According to this august and creditable organisation the Fingerprint of Man (my capitalisations) is clearly visible on polar temperature changes and, by implication, may be culpable, if culpability is, indeed, relevant.

I would have liked the opportunity to find out out the views of those who read this article. Indeed, I may have felt moved enough to add an opinion of my own!
Alas, this option does not seem to exist. Comment from readers (and in the UK- public subscribers) is either, not on offer or very cleverly camouflaged!)
This is, given the professionalism of those who define editorial policy within the corridors of the BBC, not an unconscious decision!

‘Value for money must remain a key objective for the BBC throughout the next
Charter, and it needs to develop better, clearer structures of accountability and engagement with licence fee payers.’

Engagement with licence fee payers- Mmm- Nope Guys- Not really!
Bladly trotting out a feature-a fiction- a fact; and disallowing DIRECT feedback by omitting a clear and transparent mechanism is clearly a craven practise.

True, I could probably add my twopence worth to OFCOM or OFFCOLOR, or whoever, as thousands have done in the last week with the Ross-Brand-Sachs Fiasco!!!

For those outside the UK who are unfamiliar with this sorry, sordid story- just Google it and find out how low the once mighty can fall (or is that stoop)

Coming back to the topic that I believe is based on sceptical discussion on the relevance, or otherwise, of human activities and climate; I claim that the relevance of this post is to show that poor judgement and paucity of editorial sense may be greater contributers to media-fuelled hysteria on ‘Death of a Planet’ than political mendacity!
Personally, I sincerely hope that editorial re-education rather than editorial decimation will be the path taken by those on the BBC who have the stern challenge of meeting the legalities of Charter!

I did not hide beneath any consensus, where did I say this? I simply said that I’m amazed some blog-reading nobodys are convinced they are smarter than anyone else, smarter than a whole bunch of PhDs working for years on climate modelling. I try to remain modest, and do not qualify as “stupid” people who do not think like me – I just say some of them here are obviously so self-satisfied they do not admit others could be right. “”

Just noticed this little ditty. Does your classification of “blog reading nobody’s” happen to include someone writing under the handle of “Flanagan” ?

As for this “whole bunch of PhDs working for years on climate modelling” Why don’t they try their hand at modelling the climate of planet earth; that being the place for which we have the most scientific (as in real measured observations of climate) information ??

A climate model that has the sun directly overhead at the south pole during the mid winter night, bathing the frigid pole with a constant barage of 342 W/m^2 24/7, exactly the same as is happening on the equator at the same time, does not seem to me to represent anything like what happens on our planet, where it is traditional to have it be dark, with the sun nowhere in sight during the south polar winter midnight. And we are used to having our sunlit tropical places illuminated by something like 1368 W/m^2 instead of the 342 alleged by the official NOAA global energy budget (model) that they promote.

After all those years and all those PhDs, you would think they should have discovered that something is wrong with their models.

I once had to interview a bunch of candidates for an electronic technician’s job; and the mandate was that it had to be a candidate from inside the company unless we could find none qualified. Surprisingly some PhD employees including a Stanford, and an MIT PhD emplyee applied for the job, along with various and sundry EEs and others (some of whom were facing a possible employee cutback). There was a single outside non employee candidate, but he didn’t have any recognised University degree at all, but just some paper from some Nicaraguan school. He and his mother had got lucky, and managed to escape from the country just before the rest of their family were slaughtered.
After the full panel of interviews, of all the candidates, our reading was unanimous, this kid from Nicaragua no-name school knew more about electronics than any of those PhDs from Stanford and MIT; and I hasten to add; those particular candidates; not all from those schools. The Stanford guy couldn’t even correctly tell me what Ohm’s Law was; well that is a trick question, and nobody I ever asked in an interview, gave me anything like a correct answer. I didn’t ask the kid from the no name Nicaraguan school, since we presumed he wasn’t supposed to know the answer.

He only lasted 8 months in the technicians job, then his boss busted him to full engineer status, as it was apparent that his no-name Nicaraguan school, had certainly equipped him to do that sort of job; whatever the hell that piece of paper he had said.

Which is not to knock PhDs; but face it, a PhD generally knows a hell of a lot about not much; so if you need the special skills of his thesis subject, he’s your man, otherwise he may have learned less than someone who got out of school and went to work earlier in his career and actually learned something of the real world.

Now a DSc, and I would sit up and take notice; but a PhD might be another Dr Laura; or have done his thesis in Ice Cream Making. Not too useful in some fields; maybe could be useful in climate science.

One interesting point about nobodies is that they know nonsense when they hear it even if they cannot always articulate why they believe it to be nonsense or understand the technical method lying behind the nonsense.

And if you are contributing to a blog you are, by definition, advertising your point of view to a vast potential readership of which more than 99% are nobodies, so you can hardly complain if the audience is exactly that.

‘Blog reading nobodies’ is a terrible defamation of people. Does that poster expect that all of these ‘nobodies’ should place any post-nominal letters each time they blog? For what purpose? It is the content of their thoughts not their titles that should be considerd!

“While I feel very sorry for the people of the UK, and I would not be suprised to hear of people freezing to death this winter, the silver lining is as follows”

I’m sorry but a 3 day cold snap cannot be extrapolated like that. All that has happened is that we have had a short burst or air coming down from the arctic, the UK gets them all the time over winter. We also get easterlies from Russia that does the same thing. But the prevailing weather is warmer maritime westerlies and south westerlies. Indeed the cold snap is already on it’s way out and by Sunday temps will be up to normal again. It’s hardly snowball Britain.

WEATHER IS NOT CLIMATE and certainly this does not show one way or another about the valiity of AGW. Why is it being reported here? Seems to be filtering going on in regards to topic selection when talking about the weather, ie cold ? then post…

Flanagan (07:29:47) on 10/30. If you’re a blog reading somebody, will you please explain to this nobody how you think Solar Cycle 24 starting up is going to warm up the earth, as you seemed to claim on another thread? When I challenged this assertion by your somebodiness, you failed to answer, which makes me feel like a nobody. So you get a chance to flesh out your somebodiness here. How about it?
====================================

It looks like this new ‘proof’ from the Hadley Centre is just a recycled version of something that’s been around for some time. It’s not science. In fact, to call it ‘pseudo science’ would do it too much justice. I think a better description might be ‘confidence trick’.
This is how I would play the confidence trick. I would build a climate model (a computer program) with all the good and not-so-good stuff. Because I’m a passionate AGW believer I would of course include AGW at the core of the model. Of course, initially the model would fail to accurately predict past climate, so I would carry on adjusting and tweaking until it finally accurately reproduces past climate. I would plot a graph showing my model’s output and real historical climate, showing how wonderfully accurate the model is.
I would then remove the AGW component and then show a second graph, which would – as if by magic – show that the model no longer accurately reproduces past climate.
It’s a confidence trick for this reason: irrespective of whether the first version was honest or not, taking out the AGW component is guaranteed to make a big difference. If the version with AGW was tweaked and falsified to make it give the right answer, then taking out AGW is bound to make it wrong.
To mis-quote the M&S advertisement: This is not just science. This is junk science.

Sure, I know that their advisers are all clones of David King but surely our politicians read articles by, for example, Christopher Brooker, and they must read some of the letters they receive from sceptical scientists. In which case only fools would dismiss these completely and even if they thought there might be a 2% possibility that the sceptics could be right, surely a sensible politician would leave some room for manoeuvre. That is just sound politics.

In other words, it is the first time in history that politicians have answered straight questions with a answers, without caveats. The questions. Is AGW real? Their straight answer: yes. Are the alarmists right? The straight answer: again yes.

Andyw35 said: “WEATHER IS NOT CLIMATE and certainly this does not show one way or another about the valiity of AGW. Why is it being reported here? Seems to be filtering going on in regards to topic selection when talking about the weather, ie cold ? then post…

Outlook for this years UK winter weather is mild again. ”

And mild is somehow bad…

But climate is weather, averaged over time. And why do we always hear about heat waves or record hot days here and there as evidence of AGW?

Can somene tell me how ‘Snow blankets London’ when in fact it only ‘settled in parts’.
Me thinks a weatherman has been at Fox a little too long! What’s their motto now? Something like ‘Fair and balanced’!

Apparently, when the fjords on the east coast of Greenland are covered with snow, they are no longer “sea ice”. The same is true for inlets on the north coast of Greenland. In this comparison as you follow the coast line around the entire perimeter of the sea ice you will notice that many bays and inlets have been “whited out”. There have also been a few ice islands added. I wonder if this was the adjustment that I’ve heard about. Has anyone else seen that graph with the adjustment? Did the adjustment occur concurrent with the addition of the snow to the pictures?

You know 100,000 sq kms, here and there can add up to a below average Arctic Sea Ice Extent. I don’t know what the real number is but it would not surprise me if it is app 300,000 sq km.

In a real bit of irony, the expanding ice shelves, covered with snow, could reduce the reported sea ice area, extent, volume and anomalies, even as Arctic temperatures plummet.

What really irks me is that this could also affect the outcome of the brownie bet.

In your 02:39:11 post above, you linked this graph, purportedly taken from this site, in your attempt to prove that global relative humidity has remained unchanged.

But that is not the graph from the site. Your graph has been altered, to show almost no change in relative humidity. The actual graph from the site is here: click. Note that the unaltered graph shows a significant decline in R.H. Why did you alter the graph you posted?

Furthermore, the site you linked to states:

The lower stratosphere temperature has not declined at all since 1995 (when the ozone levels are stable or slightly increasing), so the data does not indicate any greenhouse gas cooling of the stratosphere. In fact, it appears that there has been a slight warming of the lower stratosphere since 1995, the opposite of what is predicted by computer models of the greenhouse gas effects.

[In fact, the site your altered graph purportedly came from is well worth checking out. It effectively refutes AGW, and the computer models used by the UN/IPCC to predict global warming.]

The question remains: why did you change the relative humidity graph from the site you linked to?

Finally, further evidence of declining relative humidity can be seen in this chart.

I shouldn’t really be so surprised by this, but of all the hundreds of MPs who voted this week only a handful of them – for instance, Conservative back-bencher Peter Lilley – appear to have raised a fuss over the appalling cost of the whole exercise. (The opposition to this stupid Bill has come from the back benches – not one party leader appears to have given the matter much critical thought.) Given that the government has just blown 37 billion pounds sterling of our money on bailing out the banks, you’d think that they’d be a little less enthusiastic over tossing yet more of our prosperity down the drain, but there we are. And make no mistake, the 80% emissions cut is nothing but a pointless and self-defeating gesture. The UK emits less than 2% of the world’s manmade CO2, and that percentage will be ever smaller, as China’s and India’s share grows. Even if AGW was a real issue, Britain going completely “carbon neutral” would be a drop in the ocean.

And there’s next to nothing about it in the news. The headlines this week have been mostly about two BBC presenters in trouble over making a prank phone call, a matter upon which political party leaders have made it their business to comment (as opposed to the presumably trivial prospect of long-term economic hardship resulting from the Climate Change Bill.)

Flanagan (08:48:17) You’d have to convince Leif Svalgaard that temperatures are linked to the sun before you convince me. I believe, not know, that the sun directs climate in several unknown ways, but I’m convinced that there is a poor correlation between what we know of past temperature and what we know of the sun’s past activity, as measured by sunspots. Leif hasn’t been flapping his fingertips completely in vain. So why don’t you be a big boy, and give it up? Sun Cycle 24 ramping up isn’t going to bring global temperature up by itself.
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Smokey (09:08:33) The graphs are different, and the scale is different, but the 300mb and 700mb on each show the same thing, so I don’t believe Flanagan manipulated the graph. However, both graphs refute his point; relative humidity has dropped.
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tty:
October 31st, 2008 at 11:50 am
Actually it’s wrong both ways. If you compare the two images in the link above and look at the russian coast from the White Sea east to Taimyr you will notice that in the older map the ice comes well inland. The Kanin Peninsula and Vaygach are more-or less obliterated. On the other hand the younger map, while less distorted is definitely a bit “snowed-over”, for example the whole Taz estuary which is about 250 km long and 40 km wide has disappeared completely.

Also there is another error I’ve mentioned before. From the 80’s and up to about 2003 the maps definitely shows ice in areas where there isn’t any. This is easily seen as “ice” in the Baltic in summer, where there never is any. Probably the ice in the Arctic is also exaggerated. Look at this for example:

Flanagan (08:48:17) Then again, see Steve Hempell’s comment on 10/31 at 10:12:35 on the Hard Lessons thread. Integrated cycle length and strength do seem to correlate with historical temperatures, a contention that Leif disagrees with. There are warring integrations, update at ten.
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When did that doyen of UK socialists, the Rt Hon Gordon Brown, PhD MP, First Lord of the Treasury (aka Prime Minister) decide to resort to Dubya Congressional tactics in slipping in huge clauses of incredible implications at the last minute to obviate proper scrutiny?

What does this say about this man and those he recommended to be part of Her Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and what are people going to do about it?

You may discern that I think that slightly more than writing to the newspapers is the proper response…..